A. EARLY DAYS - THE TIMES OF VIDA GOLDSTEIN

1.   overwork, economic deprivation and ill–health
2.   1880’s melbourne tailoresses strike
3.   and also …
4.   1885 the victorian lady teachers’ association
5.   1895 anti sweating leagues
6.   1895 “our opponents”  betrayal
7.   the public service act  betrayal


8.   1903 women in politics
9.   1904  victorian employers federation betrayal
10. 1907 the harvester decision  betrayal
11.1910-11 other pre-war actions
12. 1911 'the match girls' strikes
13. 1911 factories and shops acts  betrayal
14. 1912 justice (?) higgins  betrayal


15. 1912 equal pay for teachers betrayal
16. the women's political association supported the teachers
17. 1913 lady teachers’ association resolution
18. the clerks’ wages board determination 
20. 1914 teachers’ equal pay claim betrayal
21. 1914 war - 'the wicked waste of life'  betrayal


22. 1915 food prices up, unemployment, poverty
23. 1915 wpa (women’s political association) women's labour bureau
24. victorian association of benevolent societies betrayal
25. response from the women’s political ass.n
26. women’s labour bureau defunded  betrayal
27. 1915 agitating and lobbying - unemployed women
28. not only women


29. australian women’s national league (awnl) opposed the wpa betrayal
30. 1915 the women's rural co-operative
31. the international congress of women
32. prime minister's visit to london  betrayal
33. declining birthrate blamed on women  betrayal
34. 1915 cost of living demonstrations
35. 1915 unemployment and the women's labour councils
36. equal pay provision broken down betrayal


37. nursing in war
38. salaries cut  betrayal
39. the commonwealth clothing factory  betrayal
40. 1917 'we want work adjourn the house'
41. more anti feminist betrayal
42. peace has come betrayal


B. RECOVERING FROM WAR - THE TIMES OF MURIEL HEAGNEY


43. living standards falling
44. 1918 returned nurses' conditions betrayal
45. 1916-18 muriel (heagney) had got a job
46. 1919 the basic wage betrayal
47. a “where is the bachelor tax”? betrayal
48. 1925–6 women’s activism
49. shall not by sex or marriage


50. 1926 the clothing trade union claims
51. unemployment in the depression
52. 1930 the heagney-riley report on unemployed women
53. 1930 unemployed girls' relief movement
54. the communist party of australia  betrayal?
55. 1932 nationalist party  betrayal
56. miss heagney ceases work?  betrayal


57. social insecurity – wages cuts betrayal
58. 1930-1933 overwork, economic deprivation and ill-health again
59. the human right to decide for herself  betrayal
60. 1935 they worked for equal pay
61. 1937 they formed the council of action for equal pay (caep)
62. teachers’ conditions betrayal
63. recognising the service … and that men share the housework


64. wages for wives paid by husbands betrayal
65. 1941 muriel heagney's six point policy
66. 1941 women's cheap labour exploited 
67. 1941 1942 the australian women's land army (awla)
68. 1943 female rates betrayal
69. women's place in post-war reconstruction?
70. 1953 proposed wage reductions for women betrayal
71. equal pay rallies in 1955, and 1957
72. (premier?) bolte's response  betrayal
73. kath williams came out fighting


C. WOMEN’S LIBERATION – THE TIMES OF ZELDA D’APRANO

74. it all began – zelda d’aprano
75. 1968 equal basics wage case
76. 1969 equal pay case betrayal
77. the commonwealth government chain-up
78. police response
79. arbitration commission chain up
80. calling out slogans, waving banners
81. 1970 we earn 75%, we pay 75% the trams

82. what is women’s liberation?
83. woman is moving
84. background to equal pay demands
85. 1972 equal pay for work of equal value
86. 1972 childcare
87. 1956-75 women's struggle to become tram drivers in Melbourne
88. 1974 tramway women's struggle  betrayal
89. 1974 taking men's jobs? (again) minimum wage case


90. women who work in shops protest 91. women picket everhot
92. women’s action alliance et al betrayal 
93. “not wishing to help asio further …”
94. religion – catholic action - national civic council betrayal
95. women members of national civic council betrayal
96. 1974 waa “homemaker's allowance” betrayal
97. i am not a housewife
98. social welfare cuts betrayal
99. whose right to choose?
100. beyond equality


APPENDIX 1
1919 the zurich women’s international conference
APPENDIX 2 join the council for women in war work
APPENDIX 3 the 1946 australian women’s charter
APPENDIX 4
1978 waa women's report to national civic council melbourne
APPENDIX 5 the women’s liberation manifesto

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Page 3 A. EARLY DAYS - THE TIMES OF VIDA GOLDSTEIN
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15. 1912 EQUAL PAY FOR TEACHERS BETRAYAL

The Question of Equal Pay for Equal Work in the Department of Instruction - G. C. Morrison (the Commissioner) was strongly against boys being placed under the tutelage of women, being concerned abouther unconsciously destructive influence on the masculine character of the boy”.

He said he was also concerned about a possible preponderance of women teachers if women achieved anything like equal pay, leading to a situation similar to America where women teachers were paid 75% of the male wage:

"The boy in America is not being brought up to punch another boy's head or to stand having his own punched in a healthy and proper manner"
Report by the Public Service Commissioner (No. 8) 1914 V2 1st Session 353 Index to Vic. Parl. papers 1901-49

16. THE WOMEN'S POLITICAL ASSOCIATION SUPPORTED THE TEACHERS

We intend to give immediate support to the women State School Teachers in their reform, and we ask our members to study carefully the following circular sent out by the Lady Teachers' Association to the members of the Legislative Assembly, and to make its contents known in every society with which they are connected and amongst their acquaintances.
Woman Voter Oct 9 1912 University of Melbourne


Our Association wishes to bring under the notices of Hon. Members the very unfair treatment the women teachers are receiving under the scheme of salaries proposed by the Government for men only ...
Clara Weekes, President Lady Teachers’ Association Woman Voter 14 Sep 1912 University of Melbourne

17. 1913 LADY TEACHERS’ ASSOCIATION RESOLUTION

The Lady Teachers' Association passed the following resolution on the 14th instant.

"That this association demands from a democratic government equal pay for equal work, that women of twenty years’ experience should no longer be humiliated by receiving a salary of 110 pounds or less, with no hope of receiving more, however long they may remain in the service, while young men of no experience receive 120 pounds and can reach automatically 200 pounds in nine years."
Woman Voter March 18 1913 University of Melbourne

18. THE CLERKS’ WAGES BOARD DETERMINATION  

After many months of the most detailed examination of the conditions under which clerks and typists work, the Clerks' Wages Board declared equal pay…

19. EMPLOYERS BETRAYAL

When outside employers saw how things were going they set to work to create a panic amongst the women employers, telling them they would all be thrown out of employment, and that men would be taken on instead…

Harrowing tales were told of qualified women losing their employment. Young girls scarcely out of Business Colleges were organised into a Lady Typists' Association, and waited on the Minister, urging that 45/- should not be paid until after six years’ experience – Six years before one could demand the miserable wage of 45/- for highly skilled nerve-racking work!

The Minister yielded. The case for equal pay was entrusted to Mr Arthur, and we regret to say it was most lamentably presented. Every fresh experience we have of women's interests being left to the second-hand knowledge of men, well-meaning as they usually are, shows us the futility of the practice.

Wherever women's interests are at stake qualified women must be there to protect them.  

Men who believe thoroughly in the justice of equal pay do not know how to meet the specious arguments of those who oppose it ...

The judge was also influenced by Mr Justice Higgins' unsound judgements about women's work in the Mildura fruit award, but he outrivalled Mr Higgins in his peculiar reasoning on the subject ...
Woman Voter March 18 1913 State Library of Victoria


20. 1914 TEACHERS’ EQUAL PAY CLAIM BETRAYAL

In 1914 the Victorian Lady Teachers' Association applied for equal pay, only to be told in detail why their work was not equal to that of male teachers, and that the cost of living was less for women, anyway!
Megan McMurphy, Margot Oliver, Jeni Thornley For Love or Money a pictorial history of women and work in Australia Penguin 1981

Monster Meeting - Equal Pay for Equal Work
Thursday July 31st at 8pm in the Auditorium, Collins St. Admission Free. Collection
.
Woman Voter July 15 1913

21. 1914 WAR – “THE WICKED WASTE OF LIFE”
 BETRAYAL

War is out of date. Under modern conditions it cannot accomplish what those who support war want it to accomplish. Every deadly weapon is met with the invention of a still more deadly weapon ... We must aim at changing our social and industrial system so as to produce for use and not for profit.
Vida Goldstein

The policy of huge armaments which made war inevitable, and rendered it so dreadful when it came, was dictated by an International Ring of Armament firms under the direction of prominent and all-powerful statesmen and financiers who control parliaments, governments and the press.
The Woman Voter SLV 14 September 1916 p.3

In August 1914, the managing directors of four Great Powers in Europe announced that a war had been arranged and that fighting would begin at once... (Our) Prime Minister at once sent a cable message to England that Australia was in the war to the last man and the last shilling.
Eleanor Moore The Quest for Peace As I Have Known It In Australia

The War - This must be the last war between civilised peoples. The woman movement, which is growing in every nation, will force upon Governments the necessity of finding other means of settling international disputes. It is awful enough that millions of men are standing face to face with violent death.

It is more awful that all the rest of the people of the world are in danger of starvation. The food supplies of the world must cease when the hands that reap and sow are occupied in the work of slaying men. Instead of the highways of the world bringing foodstuffs, they are given up to the carrying the means of bloodshed and death.

The millions that war costs must be paid ultimately, and by the weakest, and these are the women and children of the working classes, who will pay with hunger and cold and cruel privations.

There is no real cause for the war! Great Britain has no quarrel with Austria, France none with Germany or Russia. Do we not owe to every European Nation, and they to us, the advance in art and learning that should make for everyone more happy and complete?

It is because every nation has been armed to the teeth, and the idea of war has been before them for so long: because the value of life has been obscured, that this terrible disaster, when all the evil forces of hatred, greed and violence are to be let loose, has fallen upon us.

Women know the cost of life too well to risk it lightly. Olive Schreiner writes: "There is, perhaps, no woman, whether she has born children, or been merely potentially a child-bearer, who could look down upon a battlefield covered with the slain, but the thought would rise in her "So many mothers' sons!"
Woman Voter August 4, 1914 SLV

The headlines just make one feel sick and one shudders at the wicked waste of life - life that cost so much, that is so precious.
Doris Blackburn Double Time Women in Victoria - 150 years Marilyn Lake Farley Kelly Penguin 1985 p.355

Vida Goldstein: We do not say that this war was promoted with the deliberate object of crushing the workers but we do say that: belief in Might, the fear of enemies without and within national boundaries, the use of the press, of armament firms, of secret diplomacy, under which the great mass of the people live in avoidable anxiety, wretchedness and ugliness had made such a clash of interests that a clash of arms between nations prepared for war ... become inevitable when circumstances and opportunity sounded the tocsin of alarm.
The Women's Peace Army, Pat Gowland from Women, Class and History ed. Elizabeth Windschuttle, Fontana 1980 p.220


The war brought unemployment for many women and, for a few, jobs at men’s working conditions and rates of pay.
Geraldine Robertson

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