SPECIAL EVENT
Feared And Revered: Radicals, Rebels And Reformers
Moderator: Virginia Haussegger • Michelle Arrow, Gillian Appleton, Cathy Eatock, Gail Radford, Elizabeth Reid and Biff Ward
Join this panel of living legends for a deep dive into the moments, the issues, the brawls and brainstorms behind the headlines. Inspired by the book, Women and Whitlam by Michelle Arrow, hear the stories from the women themselves – those ‘libbers’ and ‘femocrats’ who were there at the centre of Australia’s most radical feminist reforms.
How do they look back on those years of change? What advice do they have for the next generation of feminist activists?
A 90 minute special event.
Artist
MICHELLE ARROW is professor in Modern History at Macquarie University. She is the author of three books, including Friday on Our Minds: Popular Culture in Australia Since 1945 (2009) and The Seventies: The Personal, the Political and the Making of Modern Australia (2019), which was awarded the 2020 Ernest Scott Prize for history. Her most recent book is the edited collection Women and Whitlam: Revisiting the Revolution (2023).
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GILLIAN (GILL) APPLETON is a writer and researcher who has been involved in the women’s movement since the late 1960s. Gill was a member of the International Women’s Year Secretariat under the leadership of Elizabeth Reid and Margaret Whitlam from 1975-6, and worked in various capacities for the ABC and major government agencies in film, broadcasting and cultural policy. She has served on a number of arts-related boards and committees, including as Chair of the NSW Government’s Arts Advisory Council.
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CATHY EATOCK is a Gayiri/Badtjula woman, with traditional ties to the lands of central Queensland, Australia. Cathy is a PhD Candidate at the University of Sydney where her thesis is considering the capacity of the United Nations to support the recognition of Indigenous rights. Cathy is the elected Co-Chair of the Indigenous Peoples’ Organisation-Australia (IPO), a national coalition of First Nations peoples committed to advocating for the rights of Indigenous peoples. Cathy is also the elected Pacific Representative to the Facilitative Working Group of the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
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GAIL RADFORD spent more than twenty years working in senior positions in public services in Australia and overseas. Gail became interested in Women’s Liberation and the Civil Rights movement while studying in North America. On her return to Australia she joined Women’s Liberation and was a founding member of the Women’s Electoral Lobby (WEL). Her involvement in feminist politics resulted in her joining the public service to introduce EEO programs for women and minority group members; programs that she shaped and led throughout Australia for the next 15 years.
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ELIZABETH REID was Adviser on matters relating to the welfare of women and children to E. G. Whitlam, the Australian Prime Minister from 1972 to 1975. She has contributed a chapter to the collection, Whitlam and Women: Revisiting the Revolution (2023), edited by Michelle Arrow. She subsequently worked internationally on matters related to gender, the HIV epidemic, and development.
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BIFF WARD A founding member of Canberra Women's Liberation, has been an antiwar activist, feminist activist and adult educator in human communication and harassment prevention. Author of Father-Daughter Rape (The Women's Press, 1984), one of the first books in the world about child sexual abuse; In My Mothers Hands (2014), a memoir about growing up with a mother living with schizophrenia which was short listed for major awards; and The Third Chopstick (2022) a memoir about the Vietnam war.
Moderator
VIRGINIA HAUSSEGGER AM is an award-winning journalist and gender equity advocate. Her extensive media career spans 30 years, in which Virginia has reported from around the globe, for primetime current affair programs on Channel 7, the 9 Network and ABC TV. She anchored the ABC’s flagship TV News in Canberra for 15 years. Virginia is Deputy Chair of the news media think tank, PIJI, the Public Interest Journalism Initiative; and member of the Yindyamarra Institute for Democracy Advisory Group, Charles Sturt University. In 2019 Virginia was named ACT Australian of the Year. Virginia is currently working on a book examining feminist movements as witnessed through a media lens, to be published in 2025.