Women’s Liberation, 1970: “Equality for Women” Heresy! | Chapter 16 | Razor-Wire Round Our Hearts

In January 1970, at a public meeting in Sydney’s old Queen Victoria Building, two women back from California announced a wild new idea: equality for women. Crikey! This is a personal memoir of what that moment felt like from the inside. It covers a world where women were “ladies,” where careers meant teacher, nurse, secretary or air hostess, and where the pub’s “ladies’ lounge” was a dingy back room while respectable wives waited in the Holden outside. In this chapter: The meeting that changed everything: Sydney, January 1970 Career advice in 1961, and why the BBC said women couldn’t read the news Consciousness-raising at the Glebe Point Road Women’s Liberation centre Australia’s “social apartheid” at parties, barbecues and pubs The great bra-burning myth, and how the media got it wrong Sisterhood vs. mateship: who does the word really include? Ataturk’s Gallipoli tribute, and what true mateship might look like Schopenhauer’s three stages of truth: ridicule, opposition, acceptance Funny, sharp and honest, this chapter looks at how ideas once mocked as absurd became common sense. If you enjoyed this, like, subscribe and share your own memories of the 1970s in the comments.