history
Joy Damousi
Suzane Fabian and Morag Loh
Left-Wing Ladies: The Union of Australian
Women in Victoria 1950-1998
Hyland House $19.95pb, 196pp
1 86447 0771
The UAW has promoted a range of issues. It has campaigned on behalf of women and children and embraced issues such as equal pay, the right of women to work, access to childcare facilities, peace and disarmament, the high cost of living, Aboriginal land rights, child endowment, maternity allowance, sexuality and women's health. Although left-wing in its orientation, the UAW appealed to all women to join the organisation in order to improve and enhance women's social, political and legal status in Australia. By the end of the 1950s, the UAW had established branches throughout Australia and had launched its first national magazine, Our Women.
Left-Wing Ladies charts the development of the Victorian branch, in a highly readable and accessible account. Like its counterparts elsewhere, the branch initially began not only to address social and economic inequalities amongst working-class women, but with a broader vision to radically change society. It was within this spirit and the need to combat the forces of conservatism, that the Victorian branch of the UAW came into being in August 1950. With the brutal onset of the Cold War, the UAW thus emerged in a hostile climate from which the UAW often served as refuge. Ruth Crow, one of the leading members of the UAW, recalls how the UAW offered support for left-wing families who had experienced victimisation from government attack because of their membership of left-wing groups. Doris McRae, a school principal and active unionist, had been mentioned in the 1949 Enquiry into Communism, became the subject of investigation for her political membership and eventually resigned from her teaching post. In such times of persecution she was given both political and emotional support from the UAW.
With an effective blend of personal histories and institutional information, this book vividly captures the commitment, enthusiasm and endeavours of the UAW and documents the ways in which each decade, from the 1950s to the 1990s, has brought new challenges for the organisation to address. One striking feature of the organisation's history has been its 'locality groups', which drew women together in the same suburb to campaign around issues specific to their region. In 1953 there were twenty-eight such groups scattered throughout Melbourne suburbs, which included working class areas (Collingwood, Sunshine) in middle class (Brighton, Malvern) and country towns (Mildura, Moe and Warragal). This localised, community-oriented political activism -- which has now long gone -- characterised the women's movement for most of the last century. The ways these groups provided social networks and friendship groups especially for young mothers, is well captured. The oral interviews conducted for this book are a feature and convey the sociability, as well as the political agendas which inspired its members. Yvonne Smith wanted to join a women's group in Sunshine which did not talk about nappies and cooking and found stimulating cultural and political discussion in her local branch. For Sadie Kirsner, the UAW offered political discussion that ordinary housewives' and mothers' clubs did not offer. Although small in number compared with other women's groups like the Country Women's Association, the UAW did much on a local level to mobilise issues of relevance to women. This book also effectively captures how, at a time when women's place was not expected to be active in political life, these organisations provided women with skills which gave them confidence to speak in public, agitate and organise politically.
The UAW foreshadowed the many campaigns and issues which would later be taken up by the younger generation of women liberationists. The relationship the UAW developed with the feminist movement during the course of its history is well documented, as is its international links with women throughout the world. Yet, as the authors note, these were women of a particular generation. Sexuality was not always high on its agenda and its relationship to prostitution was ambiguous. As one member declared: 'the UAW was good on economic issues. When it came to sexuality it was dicey'.