This is not just because of the tube tops, t-shirts and sundresses, culottes, tracksuit pants, platform shoes and vests. Neither is it because I am delusional about the disadvantages women faced
back then, or because I don’t believe we have made significant progress since then.
It is because of the sheer mobilisation of women – something I long to experience. The feminist movement – in the mobile, everywhere-you-look, cannot-escape-it sense – is not alive in Australia. Feminism, of course, is still alive and kicking (the patriarchy in the balls) – but the movement aspect isn’t quite there.
Julia Imogen attended the ANU in 1973. She was one of the founders of the ANU Radical Feminists and describes her 1970s-self as a “teenage anarchist”. I was fortunate enough to be able to interview her about her glory-days at the ANU, during which she bestowed on me numerous pearls of wisdom.
BM: Tell me a little bit about the founding of the ANU Radical Feminists.
JI: The first meeting was called as a meeting for women’s liberation. I would say there were at least 50 people in the room – which is pretty big. I did my year 12 in America the year prior and was radicalised there because of the books I read. [In the meeting] I moved that the group not be called women’s liberation, but rather, radical feminists.
BM: What did the word radical mean back then?
JI: I am not sure what other people thought it meant, as they might not have read the same books as I had … A radical feminist was somebody who was not a member of a left-wing, male-dominated group; we rejected these groups because they were just hopeless. But we still had class consciousness, so we rejected middle-class feminist. We also rejected feminism as an adjunct to other left-wing politics. Radical feminism was radical because it went to the real root, which was, patriarchy. Radical feminism saw the fundamental classes in society as male and female.
BM: I find this fascinating because I would interpret the term differently today.
JI: Radical feminism came from America, because of people like Shulamith Firestone and Robin Morgan. Women’s liberation came out of the UK, and was more often connected to left-wing politics. The use of the term liberation refers to liberation politics and liberation movements in third-world countries. By adopting the term liberation, which had referred to anti-colonial movements, it showed women were being seen as colonised to a certain extent.
BM: That is understandable given rich history they adopted along with it. Can you describe the political-climate on campus and the successes of the Radical Feminists at the ANU?
JI: We were just angry. We were really, really angry. But, society had conspired to present us with the perfect platform for enacting our anger for about five years. We won the Students’ Association at an election and you could say we trashed the joint.
BM: Can you elaborate on what you mean by “trashing the joint”?
JI: When an angry minority takes over an organisation, the takeover will have often been enabled by preceding left-wing politicos but won’t be inherently disciplined or tied to existing power structures. This was true for us. When we attended meetings and undertook our duties we accepted no authority and then we began to fragment and our internal fights were more important than any others. Meanwhile, a reasonable number of “normal” students were quite interested in politics, democratising the University and shining a light on Indigenous issues and even women’s issues, but they were just turned off by us. We weren’t thinking of recruiting and building a movement on campus for students. This helped to form a vacuum into which truly ghastly right-wingers stepped, who were able to play on perceptions of us as shrill, alienating, irresponsible trashers. It wasn’t all our fault, though. It was partly a natural turning of the circle, especially as some older students who had been radicalised in the anti-Springbok tours and Vietnam campaigns were finishing their Honours or postgraduate degrees and leaving.
BM: It sounds intense!
JI: We had quite a lot of fun doing it. Towards the end I withdrew, though, because it became very sectionalised. It was supposed to be a collective, with no power politics, but there was the most incredible one-upmanship going on through political correctness. This was especially true when political lesbianism entered the scene.
BM: Political lesbianism as a way to avoid patriarchal sex?
JI: Exactly. The idea was that if you engaged with heterosexuality you were sleeping with the enemy. Quite a lot of women became lesbians as a political choice, rather than because of a sexual desire.
BM: It sounds quite divisive.
JI: I found it incredibly oppressive. I pulled away. Interestingly, a few years later I went along to a party to say goodbye to Isabella [a friend who was also a member of the Radical Feminists]. I took along two of her oldest friends, who were both men, and we were only allowed in because one of the men produced a bag of dope and started rolling joints and handing them out. I thought it was pathetic; Isabella didn’t even show up! We all just left when it was clear she wasn’t there.
BM: I cannot believe that was the only reason they let you in!
JI: They were incredibly paranoid. You could enter a room and instantly feel the paranoid vibes shooting around.
BM: Was this true of all feminists, and all factions of feminism?
JI: No, this was just students. There were also women a bit older than us – who married in the ‘60s, who might have already had children – who were fighting in other ways.
BM: What did they think of you? JI: They were very dubious about us young and wild radical feminists. They didn’t want to be associated with us. Then there were people who had graduated – often with law degrees – who had been recruited into the public service. They were lobbying, networking, interacting with the government and securing funding; they set up the Canberra Rape Crisis Centre. But it was us who ran the Centre, which was largely a phone service back then.
BM: Was there a huge demand for these services?
JI: There would be about one furious call every few weeks.
BM: What do you mean by furious?
JI: A woman who seriously wanted help because she had really been raped.
BM: That is incredibly interesting; demand far exceeds supply for these kinds of services today.
JI: That’s because you just couldn’t talk about it. Nobody talked about it … We also went to court with people if cases went to trial. The police saw us as opposing them; all authority instantly reacted to anything feminist. We were actually called into a meeting with the police commissioner … I didn’t go but I was told he said that there were understandably more rapes in spring because of the hormones. Because it is mating season.
BM: That doesn’t even make sense.
JI: [Laughs] He thought because it was warmer it was more congenial to be out late at night stalking women.
BM: Most rapes occurred, and still occur, in the home, by acquaintances, where there is heating!
JI: Exactly.
BM: So, would you say that activism was effective in the ‘70s?
JI: I think it was effective. It did change things. Take police commissioners as an example – there has been a big shift in public discourse. You had police commissioners talking about hormones in spring, and now you have them talking about domestic violence.
BM: And what made feminism and activism so effective?
JI: We took inspiration from history; we drew strength from past struggles. We also were very influenced by hippies.
BM: Part of me doesn’t want to ask this, but I can’t help myself … what you do think of feminism today?
JI: I meet a lot of amazing young women, through my work largely, and they really impress me. But the lack of historical knowledge is astonishing. I often just feel like I have been there, done that, seen all this.
BM: What do you think has caused this?
JI: In part, I think that there are just so many books out there geared at young adults specifically. Think of the rise of young adult fiction; everyone has read Twilight! When I was growing up, these books didn’t exist. You went from children’s books to adult books at the age of 14.
BM: So, this growing genre is to the detriment of teenage awareness and education?
JI: Yes.
BM: [Chuckles] You work in publishing …
JI: Ironically, I work with young adult fiction authors and books. I do think some of these books have a lot to offer. The issue is that people keep reading these books until they are 25 and never stop because this is what they have grown up with. It would be heresy to say this at work though!
BM: There really are just so many books out there now – and this isn’t even considering the online literary scene or the media.
JI: It is just incredibly difficult to find great books today, because of the sheer number available, which means people don’t read them. It just frustrates me that everything always has to be relearnt and that society is so ahistorical now.
***
I used to wonder what it would have been like to be an Australian feminist in the 1970s. I need not wonder any longer, however, as Julia’s stories have satisfied my curiosity and painted a clearer picture of life as a second-wave feminist.
Looking at feminism on campus today, I do not feel the division that Julia described, and I do not feel like I am in competition with the other feminists around me. In fact, I am privileged to attend a university where student leaders of all gender identities identify as feminists and where these student leaders have held power for many elections past. I am also proud to be an active member of the ANU Women’s Department, where solidarity and support are BYO-ed by the bucket load.
Ultimately, comparing 1973 to 2017 got me thinking: if today’s feminists are diverse in identity, united in aspirations and bonded by ideology, when they weren’t in 1973, then surely a stronger and more sustainable feminist movement is feasible?
Perhaps our nostalgia will be satisfied sometime soon. Perhaps, just as velvet and corduroy came back in fashion and took us all by surprise so too will feminism, and we will have our movement once again.
