QWAA brings to you ‘Local Action’ a monthly instalment on the brave feminist actions by women across Queensland. In Local Action this week I talk to Merike a survivor and refugee to Australia who went on to become a an Environmental Scientist (hydrogeochemistry) with the NSW Department of Mines when women in science were rare. Merike experienced firsthand the second wave of feminism and was part of the Women’s Liberation Movement! As a mother and a woman Merike has consistently fought for the rights of women and girls and stands out as a shining example for young women to follow.
When did you decide that you’re a feminist and why?
I believe I became a “Feminist” (someone who fights for women’s rights and opportunities in society) when I was in Sunday school at the age of about 11. I had spent three years in a Refugee Camp in Germany after the end of WW2 (my parents and I escaped out of Estonia during the War when the Russians invaded). In the Camp we children survived largely on our own ingenuity, as our parents were busy trying to arrange a future.
We banded together; stealing fruit from orchards, peas from pea fields and anything else we could scrounge. We worked as a team with each child contributing whatever talents they had, there was NEVER any distinction made between girls and boys, we were just children together. I was 9 years old when we arrived in Australia as Displaced Persons. I learned English quickly and was sent to Sunday school and started to read the Bible. I didn’t understand much of it, such as about “virgins” and stuff, but certainly realised that it wasn’t good for women, and I have been lobbying for women’s rights ever since.
What is it that drew you in or inspired you to be part of feminism?
I saw discrimination everywhere. In school the boys did Technical Drawing and Woodwork/Metalwork subjects whereas girls were forced to do Cooking and Sewing, I saw restrictions on my life as a girl and I rebelled against the injustice.
As a Trainee Chemist at the Australian Iron and Steel in Port Kembla, in the 1950’s, we women received 50% of the salary the men got. Even our pay-rise after passing the same exams at university (we did our degrees part-time) was 50% that of the men. I started to lobby for equal pay, and in the tearoom all the women were in agreement but when I confronted the Management and looked behind me for the support, there was no one. This has been the story of my life, I speak out, I am a whistleblower and have suffered the consequences.
A lot of women find that they are feminists when they are young then they have to stop
work raise a family then they get back into feminism. Was it like that for you?
I have never stopped being a Feminist! How could I? It’s not like joining a hobby club; it is my view on life. In the social climate when I got married sex was not discussed; contraception was a sin (when buying condoms one had to talk quietly to the pharmacist in a back room), and it was just expected that you had babies.
I was still studying when I got married (I married my university chemistry lecturer) and was allowed to continue with the expectation that when I graduated that would be it and I would “settle down”. But of course, it wasn’t enough and I was discontent. I remember my husband saying to me in exasperation “you have a child, you have a husband, you have a house, what more do you want”. In fact I was made to feel that there was something wrong with me personally because I wasn’t happy confined to a domestic role. And I suffered alone because women didn’t talk about such things.
Can you tell us about some of the actions and activities you did when you were younger?
It was probably every day, in everything I did. I acted against discrimination whenever I saw it. For example, on the buses I caught to work in Sydney, I noticed job advertisements for bus conductors, the advertisements read that men can apply up to the age of 50, women can apply up to the age of 35. There was a 15 year age difference. I asked the Department of Transport why this was so and got the answer that women have menopause and so are not suitable to work then. I campaigned to bring this discrimination to the attention of the travelling public by scrawling, with a marker pen, the word DISCRIMINATION over the advertisements in every bus I caught.
Only a couple of times the male driver told me to get off the bus, the women passengers generally sat there like dummies, I got no support from them. It was a few years later that it was announced that this age disparity between women and men in the Transport Industry was removed. I have clocked up a few firsts in my time. For example, I was the first woman in the NSW Public Service to write on her Sick Leave Form “Elective Termination of Pregnancy” when I had an abortion.
What was it like to be a second wave feminist at the time of the sexual revolution?
It seemed like all the women were involved and so much happening. When I was a teenager
in the 90’s by then it was not cool to be a feminist. While we were somewhat past biblical times when women were just part of a man’s “goods and chattels” like his oxen, and in India where the wife was thrown onto her husband’s funeral pyre with the rest of his possessions, in the 1960’s still, a woman was expected to be “kept” by her husband; rape in marriage was legal; she had to resign from her job (like teaching) when she married; couldn’t borrow money from a bank without a male guarantor; not allowed to drink in a public bar. We were definitely second class citizens.
Into this social climate came Germaine Greer. There are those who say that the Women’s Liberation Movement began a little earlier, that may be so, but for me and thousands of women it was the coming of Germaine Greer that started it all. She of course wrote the book The Female Eunuch, in 1970, but it was Germaine herself who was the catalyst for the profound social upheaval that followed the publication of her book. Germaine was self-confident and wonderfully articulate. With a few cutting words she could flatten any man who tried to be patronising with her.
One of the most memorable events was a debate Germaine had with a number of politicians and churchmen (including the infamous Rev. Fred Nile) which was held in the Town Hall in Sydney. Thousands of people (including me) packed the Hall; it was the biggest crowd ever in the Sydney Town Hall. The ABC Television filmed the event, but the film was never shown to the public. The male establishment was in a panic. Germaine had suddenly opened up all the taboo subjects; women’s sexuality, oppression, inequality, men’s behaviour towards women, domestic violence, sex roles. It was like an explosion, patriarchy was under scrutiny, talked about in the public arena, and at dinner party conversations.
But more importantly, what happened was that individual women found that there were other women who had been feeling discontent and suffering in their domestic prisons exactly as they had been. In other words, we were not alone, and we felt vindicated, there was nothing wrong with us personally, we were not mad, it was the system that was wrong. IT WAS TRULY LIBERATION. The wave gathered momentum. Women literally “came out”. We stormed the public bars of hotels and demanded to be served. Consciousness raising groups sprang up in capital cities where women poured out their stories and were comforted by the empathy of other women.
While I didn’t need my consciousness raised, I attended many of those meetings just to be in the company of those wonderful women. It was a fulfilling and inspiring experience. I remember one woman telling us how she had slept in the park with her children after finally leaving a violent husband. What courage that woman had to take that step in her life, it was an honour to be in the same room with her.
There was a flurry of activity. Women set up Women’s Refuges, Rape Crisis Centres, and Abortion Clinics. Women’s Liberation House was an old terrace building in Surry Hills, where I helped to pay the rent. Women produced feminist children’s book, like “Mary the Farmer” and “Flippa the Penguin,” which was a story about a mother Penguin who went and had an adventure at an Antarctic Research Station instead of following the other female Penguins on their usual fishing trip. Wonderful books, I collected them all and enthusiastically read them to my daughters. But gradually that first flush of liberation and optimism for the future (we really believed we could change the world) died down as ideological differences within the Movement began to cause conflict. For example there were some who thought that you were not a true feminist unless you wore overalls and shunned makeup (that was certainly not me). Also political differences came into play.
What kind of response did you get to being a feminist from friends and family and from
men? Was it positive?
Sadly, many older women, our mother’s generation, often resented these active loud, feminists. We were trying to “liberate” them, but they felt that we were belittling their lives, they thought we were saying that the way they had led their lives was all wrong. And so there was rejection. We handed out leaflets on the street to young women pushing a pram with a toddler alongside, these young women had not read The Female Eunuch and they didn’t understand what we were on about. Just one example of how tough it was to be a woman in a male dominated profession.
Most of my career was as an environmental scientist (hydrogeochemistry) with the NSW Department of Mines. I was due to present a paper at an International Mine-Water Conference. There was a sprinkling of women in the audience, but it was predominantly men, and I was the only woman speaker. The procedure was that as the speakers were walking up to the stage the Rapporteur would describe their academic qualifications, such as X Degree from University Y, Ph.D. from University Z, and then, with a flourish of the hand announce DOCTOR John Smith. When it was my turn, as I stood up to go to the stage I could hear from the audience gasps “it’s a woman”. As I was approaching the stage I could hear the Rapporteur say M.Sc. from Macquarie University Ph.D. from University of New South Wales and then, with a flourish of the hand announce MRS. Johnson. In the couple of seconds it took to reach the Lectern I had to decide whether I would comment on it. Thinking quickly I figured there was little benefit in bringing the issue up with that audience and it would detract from what I wanted to say about my research so I had to let it go. But it was hard to do.
How have you seen feminism change over the years? I know that you’re disappointed
with the position we find ourselves in now. Where do you think feminism went wrong?
Was it the Third Wave feminism?
Second Wave Feminism was absorbed by the government through the bureaucratisation of women’s institutions. There was the Token Woman era (I was often the “token woman” on job selection panels for technical jobs in the Public Service); there was the Affirmative Action period; the very brief DIY Do it Yourself Feminism; there was also The Australian Women’s Party initiated by a group of women in Queensland, I joined it, but it didn’t last long due to lack of support.
Quite a lot was achieved for women during those years and the concept of Women’s Liberation sort of faded. I didn’t know there was such a thing as “Third Wave Feminism”. Kathleen Stock in her book ‘Material Girls’ tries to give a definition. Obviously they are not “feminists” just gullible women captured by the current Woke culture. Often my disappointment and frustration with women is the lack of unity. We are half of the world’s population, just think of the power of numbers and what we could achieve if we had a united front.
What advice would you give to younger women? Especially to those young women who
are inundated with pornography and sexual violence online and the dramatic increase in
men’s violence against women.
This is an unfair question, if I knew the answer to that I would be able to solve all our problems, I wish I could. The reality is that there has always been sexual violence perpetrated by men against women, the fear of rape has been a constant in women’s lives throughout history. But access to pornography has certainly changed, in my day “Men’s Magazines” featured women in Baby Doll Pyjamas. I can’t remember at what point some years later I realised that pictures in those magazines were now showing “everything”, and my 14 year old daughter talked about “oral sex” and I didn’t know what that was. As a feminist mother I wanted the best for my daughters but I failed. Their lives have not turned out how I had hoped, so I am not the person to give advice to others.
What are your feelings on surrogacy and men demanding the right to access women’s
bodies so they can have children even if they are not in a relationship with a woman? By
extension how do you feel about men who are disabled or single claiming that sex is a
right and demanding access to prostitution?
It’s all so awful, pathetic and disgusting. It is the worst form of slavery.
What direction do you hope for women and for feminism in the future?
I am afraid this will be a long answer. Evidence indicates a very different future globally which feminists will have to navigate. For the past year I have been researching to understand what is going on: When Al Gore rants at the World Economic Forum that “the oceans are boiling” (because of “climate change”), the audience doesn’t laugh him off the stage. When Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, proclaims to the world that “the oceans are boiling”, the world pretends to believe it is true and Tanya Plibersek, our Minister for the Environment, preaches to us with a concerned look on her face that “the oceans are boiling”. Yet a three year old child playing at the beach can tell you that the ocean is not boiling.
What is going on? When Universities dismiss scientific knowledge and Indigenise all subjects (yes, there is now Aboriginal mathematics, Aboriginal astronomy!) and students are no longer taught about Plate Tectonics but that it was the Rainbow Serpent that carved out the river valleys. What is going on? Then the silliest of all, governments forcing us to agree to believe in the biologically impossible that a man can become a woman just by thinking it, and criminalising any dissent. What is going on? Why this false reality, this denial of observable truth on a global scale.
There has to be something in common that connects all this. There are also others who are trying to find answers and have written about it. It appears that we are in the midst of a change in the global political regime and a restructuring of society, some have called it “The Great Reset”. It is based on an ideology of ‘Diversity, Equity, Inclusion’ DEI. The old concept of “Capitalism” has changed to “Stakeholder Capitalism”. Each belongs to an ‘Identity Group’ based on culture, race or gender where some groups are the “oppressors” and others the “oppressed”. Decolonisation, where history is being altered.
There is a change in world power structures due to the transfer of energy resources. It is the United Nations and its multiple agencies that are influencing, coordinating and controlling these changes. The UN is becoming the global government, determining what we will eat in the future, what is taught in schools, how often and how far we can travel. The World Economic Forum is now a powerful arm of the UN and controls how Corporations should operate through ‘Environmental, Social Governance (ESG). It is the World Health Organisation (WHO) that is responsible for the sexualisation of children. Its latest “International Guidelines on Sexuality Education” states that sex education should start at birth and describes how you should sex-pleasure babies by caressing their genitals.
All this didn’t happen overnight, it has been creeping in for almost two decades. For example, “Identity Politics” was already in full force in 2010 at Griffith Open University in the undergraduate ‘Defining Women’ course. I was appalled at what was being taught to young people. It was all about the evils of “white feminism” and how white women were the “oppressors” and that there were “multiple Feminisms”. Under the new regime women do not fare too well with the UN. There is a plethora of sections of the UN purporting to be about women’s interests but are used to further other agendas.
Did you notice how the UN commandeered International Women’s Day? This is a quote from ‘UN Women’ operating in Australia – “Feminism can be a powerful tool to
capture the gendered impacts of climate change”. So what will be the role of feminism in this new world regime? It’s still a patriarchy! I have gathered a mass of information as a result of my research, I want to put it all into a comprehensive report and give to you young feminists as my contribution to the future. Knowledge is power.
Affiliation of Australian Women's Action Alliances 