QWAA brings to you ‘Local Action’ a monthly report on the brave feminist actions by women across Queensland. Today we are talking with Nina Lee. Nina, a nature loving, bilingual, hippy musician and poet, lives in a commune in Northern NSW, and is an honorary Queenslander. I sit down with Nina today to to talk about her unique life, travelling, singing and playing guitar around the world, being a radical feminist and women’s rights activist.
How did you get into this debate?
I found out about the gender stuff in 2013-14. I had considered radical feminism to be my philosophical and political position, after reading Gyn/Ecology by Mary Daly in my early 20s. I called myself a radical feminist like I called myself an anarchist and a socialist, but I didn’t know that radical feminism was actually current and active. Then when I was maybe 26 I decided to look for other radical feminists online, and I found them! … and discovered the issue of gender ideology and female erasure. For about 10 years. I was an online reader and commenter and poster.
I moved to Northern NSW and I had been posting on Facebook quite freely, because up until then I was an unemployed nomad, so I didn’t have people to ostracise me. Suddenly I was trying to be part of this community that I loved. I was approached one day in town by this guy saying quite aggressively “I saw on Facebook you liked a post and that’s transphobic. Are you a TERF?” And I played dumb, then went home and overhauled my social media privacy. I set everyone local as an acquaintance on my Facebook friends list and anytime I made a TERFy post I would send it to friends, but not acquaintances so that I couldn’t be ostracised or judged within my own community.
One year and one month ago, I came fully out, politically, and said “no more acquaintances on Facebook!” Everyone’s getting all of my posts. A couple of people in my community think that I’m Nazi aligned and far right. It’s always people who have a child or a family member who are the most aggressive about it. The last to give this ideology up will be those that have transed their children.
How did you receive your feminist education?
When I was really little, on the inside of the toilet door at a friend of the family’s house, there was a poster Because We’re Women by Joyce Stevens. I liked that. As a child, I could see sexism, and feel it, so feminism made sense to me. I was always an avid reader and in my mid teens I came across Women’s History via Paganism/Pantheism and looking into the work of Marija Gimbutas. And when I was older, radical feminism made sense.
I read Mary Daly – the subtitle of that book is The Meta-Ethics of Radical Feminism. Her writing is amazing. It’s deeply spiritual as well as unflinchingly feminist and brilliant. It blew my mind! When I started meeting other feminists online about 10 years ago, I started getting book recommendations and reading other authors. I’ve read some Andrea Dworkin, Kathleen Barry, Sheila Jeffreys… many more. My paper and PDF book collections are impressive. I found feminist blogs by Victoria Smith and Elizabeth Hungerford. I found Feminist Current and subscribed to Rain and Thunder.
Gender Critical and Radical Feminist content increased on Youtube and podcast platforms. Women’s Declaration International’s Radical Feminist Perspectives series has been great for hearing summaries and analyses of books and ideas. From being inspired by their videos, I’ve listened to the audio book of The Creation Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner, and The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer, Sexual Politics by Kate Millett, several books from Phyllis Chestler, and of course Julie Bindle, Kathleen Stock, Helen Joyce and Holly Lawford-Smith more recently. Ok haha that was the long answer. Short answer: life and books, oh and listening to speakers at feminist conferences like those held by IWD Meanjin Brisbane!
Most radical feminists in this fight have not been subjected to Gender and Queer Theory
which is being pushed by universities.
I didn’t go to uni. I wanted to. I applied to do a double degree: music composition and media studies, majoring in journalism. I got in straight after high school but decided not to because of the debt factor. It was like “I’m going to have a massive debt to the government. Am I even sure that that’s what I want to do?” So I worked at a few dead end jobs, realised I was part of the machine. It did not suit me. I was poor, you know, and I thought without going to uni, I’d probably never be able to have a job that pays enough to own a house.
I know better now, but at the time I thought: what’s the point of working in a shit job just so I could pay rent so that I could work in a shit job? I went travelling – backpacking – for six years, and that was kind of my university. I applied later on to do naturopathy at a different university, but I’d only been travelling for a year and at that point I wasn’t done yet. I suppose I may still go to uni in the future. Sometimes I think I’d love to study women’s history, anthropology, prehistoric and current matriarchal cultures… that sort of thing – then I think – books are a lot cheaper. Education should be free.
Did you feel safe as a young woman? When were you backpacking a longer time?
I often didn’t. I’ve got a lot of front, but on the inside I was scared as hell. Yeah, definitely, times when I was in India… I was travelling with a man most of the time. But there was three weeks or a month when I was in India alone, and that was difficult. It was scary. There I was, berating myself for my own fear, thinking that I was being racist, but I wasn’t afraid of the women. It was only the men. Once, I tried to challenge what I was calling my racism. An Indian guy started to talk to me in the street and he spoke a bit of English and he was helping me find some beads in Varanasi. After a while he started touching shoulder, saying “oh you’re really beautiful” and I’m like “that’s OK but we don’t know each other, so don’t touch me.” He invited me to get some food together, and I was thinking no, but I went anyway, to challenge my “racism”. Then he asked me to come back to his place – we could smoke a chillum, he only lived around the corner, and he said his flat mate had lived in England. My gut was telling me NO, but I went. It was nightmare – nothing happened but they were just awful and wouldn’t stop being really sleazy and inappropriate, really inappropriate. I ended up shouting at them and running away.
I was trying to explain to them about the different cultures. They were saying “in my culture, women dresses to here (pointing to the ankles), and in your culture women dresses here (pointing to above the knee).” I was telling them “in my culture, woman dresses here (ankles) when it’s winter and here (above knee) when it’s summer, and the same with men, but nobody’s looking!” – and that’s a lie. I was painting this bullshit picture of western culture minus sexual objectification. I went from India to New Zealand and I was sexually assaulted in New Zealand while couchsurfing. It was not the Indians or their culture. It was just men, and patriarchy.
I kept doing risky stuff though. I did a lot of hitch hiking. The last scary situation was in France. Nothing awful happened. But I think he intended to rape me. I was picked up in a white van in France, in the countryside, and as soon as we got rolling, he was like, “so, you just get in the car with anyone, huh?” Holy Shit! He said a number of things that freaked me out, and he had a murderous smile. My French is really fluent, and my accent is quite good, so I think he thought I was a homeless French person, not a tourist, because the way I looked, so raggy, with holes in my clothes, really messy dreadlocks, shells in my hair.
I was actually on my way to Radfem Conference. I started putting on an anglophone accent and saying, “I don’t understand what you’re saying, my French is not that great, I’m going to the yoga retreat, lots of people are waiting for me” As soon as we got to a town, I had my arms wrapped around my backpack, I was ready to jump out of the moving car. But he did stop, and he let me out. After, he did a U turn and went back the other way. So he wasn’t going where he said he was. After that I stopped hitchhiking for 6 months, and stopped long distance hitching for good.
What countries have you been to?
I have travelled around Australia. I spent a year in New Zealand and a year in France and then 6 months across Switzerland, Spain and Morocco. as well. I spent seven months in total in Nepal and maybe two or three months in India and short visits in south-east Asia and the UK. The first night my ex and I spent in Morocco in our campervan, we decided to camp in a forest near the beach. I got spooked by a man in the forest while I was looking for a private toilet spot – nothing happened, but my ex said he thought I might have a phobia of men. That is when I sat him down and explained to him what it’s like being a woman in patriarchy. Phobia! A phobia is an irrational fear of men, and women’s fear is not irrational. He was ok after that.
Tell me more about the Radical Feminist Conference in France.
It was about 6 years ago. It was a bilingual conference, five days long, I think. There were 250 women from 36 countries. Radical Feminists from France and the U.K. and Australia organised it, I think. Sheila Jeffries was there, from W.D.I., and Julia Long and Jo Brew. We had two sessions in the morning and then there were two afternoon sessions. There were presentations, discussions, and a song circle. I was a translator from French to English. It was my first experience of a feminist female-only space and I have to say it was profound, the effect on me was profound – it’s a different kind of female freedom that we don’t get to experience nearly enough.
When did you start getting involved in IWD Meanjin Brisbane with Anna McCormack?
I met Anna about 5 years ago. I think it was 2018, or Anna’s second IWD rally, I think it must have been through a Australian Radical Feminist page on Facebook. I was surprised. There was an actual Radical Feminist International Women’s Day march in the capital city nearest to me. I had to go! I rocked up. I think I was the first one there at Emma Miller place next to Roma Street and I met Anna. We showed each other our feminist tattoos and became friends.
Nina showed me her Venus Fist Pump with a couple of little flowers on it.
I got it for my 30th birthday! I also attended the IWD Women’s Liberation Conference in 2023, and the rally and march. After I spoke at Let Women Speak Brisbane, and then had a TERFy song that went semi-viral on Twitter, I think it was the next conference that Anna asked me to speak at, and to sing. And since then I keep getting invited to sing, or to lead the group in song. I love it – I have always enjoyed a rousing protest song!
How long have you been living in Northern NSW?
8 and a half years now, and I really love it. Over the years I have had various plans to live in the Himalayas in Nepal, or in France… but seeing as I’m in Australia… sure, I haven’t been everywhere in Australia, but I haven’t found anywhere better than this, either.
Tell me about your music, writing and like some of the songs you’ve written and how they’ve gone viral.
Only one has gone semi-viral, thanks to a share from Mr Menno! Check out Radical Rebella on YouTube: Let Women Speak Melbourne. Women were right where they needed to be! It was to tell the truth about that event after the media and politicians told such blatant lies about the women involved. When you get the inspiration and it’s all flowing, it just comes out, and it came out in about an hour. 15 minutes after I finished writing it, I recorded it with my phone. I was still in my pyjamas and hadn’t brushed my hair or anything, and THAT’s the video that was shared so much.
https://youtube.com/@radicalrebella?si=T3zgKVWEnUioMLJW
I started playing music when I was a teenager. I come from a musical family. I started busking between jobs when I was 19 because Centrelink wouldn’t pay me. I needed the money so I started playing on the street. This is something my mum taught me when I was really little. She took her guitar, and us little kids, and we stood in front of the fish and chip shop while she played songs and sang until we had enough for fish and chips. So, when I needed money, it was like, well, I guess I’m going to do that. I was so terrified and shy. During the backpacking years I did a lot of busking. I’ve written a lot of my own songs, and I’ve had years of writer’s block where I can’t write a single thing. I still write a few songs every now and then. Mostly I cover songs. I’m always on the look-out for feminist songs or protest songs that can be changed to make them feminist. I’ve been discovering a lot of artists like Peggy Seeger and Glen Tomasetti – She’s the one who write “Don’t be too polite girls”. She has another song called the Army’s Appeal to Mothers. It starts like this:
Please don’t bring him up to be sensitive.
Don’t bring him up to be kind.
Don’t bring him up to believe that man can use his heart and mind,
When it comes to twisting a bayonet or sticking in the boot,
He’ll find it so much easier if you bring him up as a brute.
I play a lot of feminist songs at the local open mic night, and sometimes at casual gigs. So, I’ll be up there singing “He’ll make a happier soldier if you brutalise him young.” I’d really love to record an album of feminist covers, like, soundtrack to the feminist revolution. There’s a song from a feminist in the United States who is a comrade sister of Amy Sousa. They got hit with cream pies when they were speaking and handing out leaflets in a park. The TRAs came, threw cream pies, and took some of their equipment and there’s a video when she has cream on her face singing her original song:
This is what you do to us, your violence, so gratuitous.
What’s violent – nothing new to us.
We, people of the uterus!
People of the uterus!
I would love to cover it. I also write prose poetry, and perform those at open mic. There’s one called Embodied that’s so clearly TERFy… and people cheer for it. I’ve written a few gender critical articles under pen name Germaine Daly for the local paper, but it doesn’t have much reach so I think I’ll start sending them to some bigger papers.
You should have an album. So, what next for you?
Well, a few local gender criticals and I are going to go down to Sydney for the Tickle v Giggle case in Federal Court. We’re gonna hand out flyers – I made some today – and witness the insanity in the courtroom. Hopefully there will be a bunch of us outside singing I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar.
As far as feminist actions go, I design and wear my feminist shirts, I do leafletting locally, and that will continue. Some local TRA was asking – who is putting the “transphobic shit in my letter box?” on Facebook. Hilarious.
I’ve been to a meeting with our local state government representative with some other feminists, to lobby to block the IN-equality Bill, and around that time I joined the NSW Labor Party. I would like to try to network with Labor women, to whip up a bit of female self respect, and maybe some sisterly solidarity, and try to get Labour women speaking up for our sex-based rights.
I’m a Women’s Rights Network Australia member, and although I almost never make it to meetings, I’ll keep writing letters to MPs to help put up a resistance to the bizarre misogynistic and homophobic reality-denying laws that keep getting introduced to Parliament.
I’ve held one Feminist Revival wine and nibbles, watch and discuss evening on the
commune where I live, where I showed a Youtube video from WDI’s Radical Feminist
Perspectives series, and I intend to make them a regular event, to introduce people to
radical feminist authors and thinkers who have been largely discarded in favour of the post-
modern neoliberal “feminist” thinkers.
I run a small facebook page for gender critical women in the Northern Rivers, and I’ve started building a simple webpage for the Northern Rivers Gender Critical Network (men and women). My hopes for this are that there will be some simple definitions of sex, gender and identity, what it means to be gender critical, why it’s important, and updates about related happenings in Australia, with a place where you can join the mailing list if you agree, live in the Northern Rivers and are Gender Critical. This way I hope to collect a list of ordinary people who agree with us but aren’t necessarily activists – or don’t have the time. Then, when I write letters to MPs, it can be as a representative of X many people, thus carry more weight.
Some of us local gender criticals would really love to be able to hold a Northern Rivers gender critical conference, like the IWD Meanjin Brisbane ones, where people are invited to register and be vetted, and we can have filmed speakers, in a safe environment, which we can later upload online. At this stage it seems far off, but we will continue to grow the network!
Earlier this year I was given the honour of chairing the IWD Meanjin Brisbane International Women’s Day Rally, so I got to do the intro speech and introduce the fantastic rally speakers, and NEXT year, as you know, you and I and the wonderful Sue Clarke will be organising the entire rally and march. So I imagine that will be a leaning curve – I’ve never done anything like that before.
I empathise with those that have no time for activism. After 13 years being a happy-go-lucky vagabond, I have returned to being part of the machine – I have a proper job. Plus, I live alone, off grid, in the sub-tropics, so all the tasks are mine, and the encroaching jungle needs constant attention. Work on the webpage has stalled and I have very little time for music these days, although I will be singing at the IWD Meanjin Brisbane conference ‘Women Will Resist’, where Jillian Spencer and Sal Grover will be speaking.
What I would really like is a wealthy patron, some gender critical or radfem millionaire who wants to pay me a wage to write and record a feminist album, and start a sweary, funny, bogan-ish, ranty radfem youtube channel, haha. I don’t see that actually happening, but I can dream.
Nina has excellent songs on YouTube that you can listen to. Nina will be one of the coordinators of the IWD Meanjin Brisbane Women’s Day March on 2025 with Sue Clarke and Emma Goodwill. If you live in Northern NSW and you would like to join Nina and her group, contact QWAA at queenslandwaa@gmail.com and we can put you in touch with Nina.
Affiliation of Australian Women's Action Alliances 