Alison Dellit: Yuma. Good evening everyone, and a very warm welcome to the National Library of Australia. My name is Alison Dellit and I'm the acting Director General here at the National Library while Dr Marie-Louise Ayres takes a very well earned break. Before I continue, can everybody please check to make sure that your mobile phones are on silent, especially our panel, or switched off entirely is an option for those who can.

I would like to acknowledge the Ngunnawal people as the traditional owners of the land on which we live and work. I'll pay my respects to their elders past and present, and I would like to extend that respect to all First Nations peoples with us tonight. Given our topic, I'd like to particularly thank and acknowledge the many fierce, strong Ngunnawal women who have made this a safe and welcoming meeting place for millennia.

It is my pleasure to introduce one of my favourite events in association with our '1975: Living in the Seventies' exhibition. Tonight is a rare chance to reflect on a moment in history that reshaped Australia's social and political fabric and one that has a legacy that we are still unfolding today.

In the late sixties and early 1970s, women across the country stood out, spoke up and demanded change. They fought for equal pay, legal abortion, accessible childcare, the right to ongoing employment, the right to control their own money, and the associated right to live free from violence and discrimination. And in an era where femininity was associated with docility and gentleness, they were unapologetic and bold, embracing descriptions like "brazen" to redefine who we were allowed to be.

The documentary 'Brazen Hussies' captures this era with integrity and with heart. Directed by Catherine Dwyer, the film traces the rise of the Women's Liberation Movement in Australia from 1965 to 1975. It brings together archival footage and personal stories. It's a record of courage, confrontation, and transformation.

Tonight before we screen the film, we are very fortunate to hear from four women who are central to this movement and have remained so as activists, thinkers, storytellers, and genuine change makers. We of course have Catherine Dwyer, writer, director, and producer of 'Brazen Hussies.' We have Elizabeth Reid, appointed by Gough Whitlam as the world's first advisor on women's affairs to head of government in 1973. Elizabeth's career has been groundbreaking throughout her life, and we have the inimitable Biff Ward. Activist, writer, and feminist trailblazer, whose early involvement in the movement and ongoing work for justice have helped shaped the country we live in today. Our facilitator this evening is Virginia Haussegger, award-winning journalist, broadcaster and staunch advocate for gender equality, who has just released her new book, 'Unfinished Revolution: The Feminist Fightback' if someone wants to hold it up, which of course you may purchase in the best bookshop in Canberra, which is just upstairs.

The National Library very proudly also holds the papers of Elizabeth Reed here in Parkes, documenting not only her groundbreaking role, but also the activities associated with the 1975 International Women's Year. This is a fabulous collection, including diaries, notebooks, articles, and press cuttings, a huge range of materials relating to women, our lives and successes, and our fight for an equal playing field. Please join me in welcoming Catherine Dwyer, Elizabeth Reid, Biff Ward and Virginia Haussegger.

Virginia Haussegger: Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much, Alison. What a beautiful, warm welcome. I too, of course, would like to open by acknowledging the beautiful lands that we live on and thank the Ngunnawal people for the many, many, many thousands of years of caring for these lands. How lucky are we?

But how lucky are we to be here tonight? I feel very excited about this conversation. For those of you who haven't seen the film 'Brazen Hussies' you are in for an incredible treat. I, of course, have seen it, but I could see it over and over and watch it over and over and over again.

And we're also hearing from two of those women very central to this story. So there is a great deal we can talk about tonight, and we're all sort of bristling with so many thoughts about how we want to cover this. We've only got 40 minutes or so, and then we do want to make sure that we hear from you because we're used to speaking about this period and these issues, and we could all talk all night. You could have well and truly gone, we'd still be talking, but it always is fascinating to all of us as to what others think and what other concerns people bring to this discussion and what are the observations people bring to this discussion and questions. So I want to be sure to give you time to ask your questions, so don't hold back please and being Canberra, no one holds back. Not for long, anyway.

I'd like to open by asking Catherine Dwyer, the filmmaker of 'Brazen Hussies', and I'm very, very excited to actually meet Catherine. We've been talking for a long time. It's the first time we've met in person. This film blew my mind when it came out. So November 2020, this was a very important period in Australia in regard to what I call a changing or a national consciousness raising. And we really hit a crest around late 2020 and of course 2021 with March for Justice. But I want to throw open first to Catherine to tell us a little bit about why you as a filmmaker, why you were drawn to this story, to this period, to these women, given all the sorts of things that you could have been focusing on as a documentary filmmaker, why this story?

Catherine Dwyer: Thanks Virginia, and it's such a pleasure to be here. It's such an honour. The film did come out almost five years ago, so it's a perfect compliment to the '1975' exhibition, and I'm so pleased that people are still interested in watching it. I'm going to answer your question, but I just wanted to see how many people in the room had actually seen the film already. Oh, wonderful.

Virginia Haussegger: That's quite a few. And for those who are watching or can't see the audience watching this streamed, I think that's probably about a quarter, maybe a third have seen it. Okay.

Catherine Dwyer: Yeah, so I actually probably don't think of myself as a filmmaker. I mean, this was the first film I ever made and I dunno if I'll ever make another one. I think I just really wanted to know the story of the Women's Liberation Movement, and I dived in head first, bit off way more than I could chew. I just went straight into a feature documentary. But the background to that is that I had had conversations with women my own age who didn't identify with the term feminism, and that sort of made me double down on identifying as a feminist and also wondering what is being forgotten or lost? Why is feminism a dirty word?

Virginia Haussegger: Can I just clarify what age period you are talking about? I'm not asking you to tell us your age necessarily, but are you talking about millennial women?

Catherine Dwyer: Yeah I'm 43. So I was born in 1982, and I'm definitely a daughter of the Second Wave movement. My mother is the same age as Biff and Elizabeth, and she was a feminist. She wasn't an activist though she wasn't in the movement, but she's definitely influenced by it. But basically, I ended up living in New York and there was a filmmaker there who was doing a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for a film about the American Women's Liberation Movement. And I just got goosebumps when I saw the trailer and I saw they were based in Brooklyn, and I contacted them and made them take me on as an intern. It completely changed my life. And one thing that's really important for me, why did I make this film? Is that working with that director, she was a mentor and she showed me that it was possible. And I think women's stories and women in positions of power, I mean, it's so important because I definitely would have just thought about it and wondered about it, but never actually tried to do it.

Virginia Haussegger: So given that background and your intention of really unpacking the story around feminism and women's liberation, what was the most difficult aspect of trying to tell this story? When you sat down at the beginning, what were you up against?

Catherine Dwyer: Yeah, it was definitely an ambitious project to try and tell the story of a social movement and to not have any main characters and to not have a narrator because I wanted it to be told by the women who lived it. Grappling with that was in the editing phase. But it had taken five years to get to that stage. So I had a lot of time for research and I do love research, and I got deep into that. But going back to your first question about why did I do this, I've been thinking about that a lot lately. It's been a while since I made it, and I'm sort of despairing about the state of the world. And I did wonder why did I get so obsessed with uncovering this history? I mean, I felt very passionately "why didn't I know it?" And I didn't know any of the women. I had never heard of Anne Summers.

Virginia Haussegger: You hadn't heard of Ann Summers?

Catherine Dwyer: No. And I didn't know about Elizabeth Reid. So reading about Elizabeth Reid being appointed the first advisor to a head of state anywhere in the world was incredible. I was mesmerised by this story.

Virginia Haussegger: That is so extraordinary to me that you didn't know the women who ended up being absolutely central to your story because your film has now become, for a much younger generation, their awakening to this story and these women. And I've actually sat some students down to watch it over the past recent years, and they didn't know about Elizabeth Reid. So yeah, it's a beautiful line of connection there.

Catherine Dwyer: Definitely. And so thinking about why, because I'm feeling a little bit despairing of the current climate and the state of the world one, yes, I think we all are. What drew me to uncovering this because I obviously knew that it happened and we knew certain things about Second Wave Women's Movement, and it did have a huge impact on the world, but I wanted to go to the roots of it and find out how a grassroots movement that happened with the women's movement takes place because it really is such a rare occasion that a grassroots social movement takes off like wildfire, like the Women's Liberation Movement did in the seventies.

Virginia Haussegger: So coming back to my question about what was difficult about it, what was hard about it.

Catherine Dwyer: Everything.

Virginia Haussegger: Everything. I get that, I understand that, but did you find, first and foremost, did you find women willing to talk?

Catherine Dwyer: Definitely. And actually, I have to give credit to Jocelynne Scutt because she edited a book called 'Different Lives' and it is incredible. And so many women that I interviewed wrote a chapter of that book. Biff and Elizabeth and Lilla Watson, and if only Pat Eatock were alive because her chapter is incredible. But what was difficult, I said, everything. Well, actually accessing the oral histories at the National Library was not difficult. It was fantastic. And I was able to do such useful research through them. And Biff had done a lot of the interviews and had done her own oral history.

Virginia Haussegger: I'm just going to jump in on that too. And I'll say absolutely ditto for this book. And I've spent the last two years in this Library, and I feel like I own various seats and desks because I've been here for so long. But the oral histories that the National Library of Australia has put together, collected and collated over years are utter gold, gold. Because I also sat and listened to hours upon hours upon hours of oral history before I interviewed some of the women I've interviewed. And it just brings alive, particularly for the women who have passed, brings alive these stories. So thank goodness the National Library has done that.

I'll move on now, to two of the stars of this film. I want to ask you about your experience of being part of Catherine's film. Now, Elizabeth, to you first, I imagine there were aspects of going back in your mind to talk about this period that would've been tough because, well, we can come to this a little bit later, but you had a pretty tough time when you were in the role that Catherine spoke about as advisor to the Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. But what was the experience of doing the interview for this film like for you all those years later?

Elizabeth Reid: Well, let me answer it on a number of levels. I found it very difficult personally because I had been, this was 2020, wasn't it? When did you start?

Catherine Dwyer: Film came out in 2020, but I interviewed you in 2017.

Elizabeth Reid: 2017, yes. So in 2009, I was diagnosed with Parkinson's, and I felt that my speech was going, and I listened to it today and I can hear it. So for me, it was a real strain to try to make sure that I could cope with it. And for Catherine, I think I didn't realise at the time, but I was only her second interviewee.

Catherine Dwyer: I was very nervous.

Elizabeth Reid: So me trying to hold my voice out there and Catherine trying to control me, I mean, to get me to say what she wanted me to say, that was a very awkward thing. Now, what the question was?

Virginia Haussegger: The experience of being interviewed, but also I think we're interested to hear how you felt about it when you saw it.

Elizabeth Reid: When I saw it, I felt, I mean, it was an extraordinary film. It brought back all sorts of memories, and it's truly a document of the times. I mean, Catherine made a real effort to get archival footage so you can see some footage there that you didn't even know that existed. And so seeing it was a tremendous pleasure.

Virginia Haussegger: I would imagine it would be because it's such a good film. Biff, what about you? What was the experience of being interviewed like and how did you feel about it when you saw the film?

Biff Ward: Well, the first thing I'd tell you is that I'd been interviewed by quite a few people over preceding years about this or that, or Pine Gap Women's Camp or something. And while a lot of those experiences were pleasurable, overall mostly, I felt like I wasn't really on the same page with the person, or they hadn't done a lot of research or they'd done research and it wasn't where my thoughts were, so I was actually expecting very little.

Virginia Haussegger: No offence, Catherine. No offence.

Biff Ward: So that's a bit of hubris for you then.

Virginia Haussegger: But that's a very fair comment though. A very fair comment.

Biff Ward: So Catherine arrived with her team of four other women, these five women just came and took over my house, and it seemed like hours, I dunno if it was one or two, but it seemed like three or four just to set up, make it into a film studio. And then they sat me in this chair, and one of them was hiding behind the sofa, who was doing sound or something so she didn't distract me. It was fun and interesting to me. And Catherine stood, I think, sat, quite a way in front of me and started to ask me these questions, and she'd say things like: "Now in 1971 you wrote blah-dy, blah-dy, blah." And I'm going, "Did I?"

Virginia Haussegger: "Did I say that? Really?"

Biff Ward: And there was a lot of that. I was so impressed with the amount and depth of the research. And I think overall, I actually regret that I hadn't known it was going to be like that. So I could have prepared more. I would've said more interesting and useful things.

Virginia Haussegger: Oh.

Biff Ward: No, seriously, seriously. I was just on the surface of memories and good feelings and things, rather than having really thought about some of the things she brought up, which I hadn't talked about for years.

Virginia Haussegger: I understand what you mean. And I think we all feel that when we've been interviewed. I know I certainly do, but the story you are telling is new to people, and they don't know the bits that you haven't told, but it is nevertheless new to people and very compelling.

I want to also come back to the point you just made about five women come in and they're rearranging your house and all that sort of stuff. As a television journalist myself, I know that that can be obviously very confronting to people and often put them, invariably put them a little bit offside such that they become a bit formal in their speech. And that struck me when I first watched 'Brazen Hussies' is how incredibly open the women were with whoever it was who was interviewing, which was obviously you Catherine. But no one was just giving what we call "giving grabs", just saying lines, delivering talking points, or answering a question. All of the interviews are really revealing, animated, and you can tell that the interviewee is a hundred percent focused on the story. And it's really hard as an interviewer to get people to that point. So you do something very special. What is it?

Catherine Dwyer: I don't know.

Biff Ward: I could answer some of that. They were so friendly, particularly Catherine. They were just friendly and warm and laughing, and it felt fun. And also, as I indicated, I was fascinated by "What do you do?" And one of them went into another room and shut the door, and she was crucial somehow. So I was kind of engaged at that level, just what are these women doing? And it was kind of fun.

Virginia Haussegger: Yes, it's gorgeous. Just coming to one of the core themes of 'Brazen Hussies' - we're talking about liberation. Now, I'd like to hear from all of you about how you separated the idea of liberation from equality. And you brought this out really beautifully in the film, Catherine, or you do bring it out. This was not just, I shouldn't say just, but this was not about women fighting for equality and gender equality. This was something quite different. This was about women and liberation. Can you just pick up on that theme a little bit? And I'd like to hear from both Elizabeth and Biff about this.

Catherine Dwyer: Yeah, I mean, going back to that idea of what makes a grassroots movement take off and ignite like that, I think it's remarkable as well. And maybe the interviews went so well because we were all so excited to talk about it. I mean, the women that I interviewed were thrilled to talk about it, and it was like, we've got this secret thing that we had to record and share and spread. So yeah, that's where the passion came from. It was so exciting. It's like, this is really important and people need to know about this.

Virginia Haussegger: And no one had done this. No one had told this story in broadcast before.

Catherine Dwyer: Not quite in this very ambitious way to try and describe a whole movement, but I guess the movement is the main character of the film. And when I thought about how am I going to edit this story together, it was so hard to have a cohesive narrative that runs through it. I decided to frame it in the same way that social movements happen, like it's been documented. They sort of emerge and then they explode, and then they sort of coalesce and become bureaucratised. And I thought that would be an interesting way to follow the movement. But in terms of liberation, I dunno. I'd rather hear from them.

Virginia Haussegger: Well, Elizabeth, I'll throw that one to you now. You've always been very clear about this, and certainly in my book, we talk about this a lot because you kept repeating over the years you and I have spoken, is that the quest wasn't about equality. And in fact, and I'll just make this point very quickly, but one of the most powerful speeches I have ever heard in my life and ever read, and I have probably read a thousand, was the speech Elizabeth Reed gave in 1975 in at the UN World Conference on Women. And it was held in Mexico. It was the very first world conference on women. And Elizabeth was the head of the Australian delegation. And she spoke very early on in this conference and in that speech, which is a landmark speech, which historians still talk about. And in fact, one of them said to me when I was writing my book that that speech stands today, 50 years later. She said, you wouldn't change any of it. But Elizabeth in the speech speaking to the United Nation at the United Nations spoke very strongly about why equality can, in fact, the quest for equality can in fact be dangerous, can in fact wind things back for women. Can you pick up on that a little bit, Elizabeth?

Elizabeth Reid: Yes. Well, the question of equality versus something else was the quest that the Women's Liberation Movement undertook here in Canberra and the Canberra Women's Lib. What are we trying to achieve? And this is in fact, relevant to the gulf between Women's Electoral Lobby (WEL) and Women's Liberation Movement. We felt that it relates to the reform versus revolution, which we saw as a dilemma, a particular stage in history. Briefly, we were not fighting for equality. Equality to us meant making women like men and putting them into a man created world, world created by men for men. That's a bit crude, but that's roughly I think, how we felt. And so we weren't fighting or striving towards equality. And we also felt that it wasn't about, equality is about pies and things like this, getting an equal share of the pie. But we wanted something. We wanted to free women. We wanted to allow women the possibility of creativity, of forming a world in which women would like to live as well as men. And so the concept of liberation was very important for us. And in fact, in Canberra, Women's Lib, we tended to use the word women's liberation. That's what we're for, more than we use the word, the description, of ourselves as feminists. We did at times use that, but we were members of the Women's Liberation Movement.

Virginia Haussegger: I think that's beautifully put. Biff, the idea of liberation? And then I think you can take us to revolution.

Biff Ward: Ah, okay. I think the work that you've done, Catherine and your book [Virginia], have helped me realise more of what I think about these things and find better words. And I think that it's now very clear to me that liberation compared with the fight for equality, and some equalities are good, we know that. Of course they're good, we want them. But they're just little steps on the way. And that liberation is actually about, it's revolutionary, because it's about the end of sexism. Which I think sometimes we can vaguely imagine or make ourselves have an imaginable little thing. And imagine a world without sexism or racism. I'm going to get tearful too. Old ladies do.

Virginia Haussegger: All ladies do!

Biff Ward: We get even more, I promise you. Yeah. So to me, that's a really helpful way to understand what I mean by liberation is an end to sexism, which may never be able to come.

Virginia Haussegger: It can, it can come.

Biff Ward: But imagine a world without rape. Yeah. So go on, ask me something.

Virginia Haussegger: A world without sexism. Yes, we can get there. Of course we can. We can do that.

Biff Ward: I know what I want to say is that I think there was Women's Liberation and very quickly WEL and the whole fight for equality. And we were a bit different then, some women were in both. Years later when Susan Ryan organised a conference and we were all there, we sort of went "Oh, we're all doing the same thing, really." There are differences, sort of. But when we talk like this, I think they're still there for me, they're very important. And I've always said, I'm a women's liberationist. And I think that what's happened in the last 10 years with Me Too, and so on and so on, and all the stuff you do so beautifully in your book and that March 4 Justice moment in Australian history, that all of that is really a return to this concept of liberation. It's way beyond equality, that kind of anger and awareness of sexual predation and what it does to us. And I just want to really honour the work you've done, both of you. And I think you [Catherine] started it, and your [Virginia] book just takes off from Catherine's film and does such a good job. Everyone must get many copies and give them.

Virginia Haussegger: Thank you. Catherine?

Catherine Dwyer: Yeah, I just wanted to say that what Biff and Elizabeth have just said reminds me of a really powerful image that was in an essay I read by Aunt Lilla Watson, who's a Koori [correction: Murri] woman. And she drew a Venn diagram of Koori culture where there is a circle, which is 'men's business,' there's a circle that is 'women's business.' And then they intersect, and in the middle is 'community business.' And then her diagram of western culture, mainstream culture, was a circle. And that was 'men's business' and inside that circle was a smaller circle, which was 'women.' And I just was blown away by that because it just totally nailed it, that women had been colonised in our culture and we don't define ourselves. And so that idea of liberation is sort of getting away from that, being defined by a dominant.

Virginia Haussegger: It's very interesting that image of the Venn diagram is so powerful. And Elizabeth, I know touched on this many, many years ago in writing about it too, that women are colonised sex. The issue of sexism, and I just want to come back to this because it's an important point about the speech I mentioned that Elizabeth gave in 1975 at the UN World Conference on Women. Elizabeth was the very first person to raise the issue of sexism to the UN.

Biff Ward: Even the word.

Virginia Haussegger: The word sexism. Yeah, sorry. Not just the issue, but the word. And in her speech talked about sexism and defined what it was that had never been done before, ever, ever. And this was a global stage. And again, historians, certainly those that I've interviewed, still talk about that as being a pivotal moment for women around the globe because that changed the language of the UN. And interestingly since then, there were four world conferences on women, 1975, 1980, 1985 and 1995, the famous one that Hillary Clinton spoke at about women's rights being human rights and human rights being women's rights. Each of those conferences picked up on that theme of sexism that Elizabeth Reid had brought into the discussion. And it changed, changed the conversation. It actually changed national action plans. It did shift enormously global thinking. Slowly, slowly. But it did actually make that shift. So I think that's an important point to make.

But just coming back to revolution versus reform. This is an interesting one too, because at times there was a bit of push and pull among women back then. When we are talking, the period of the early women's liberation period in the early seventies, bit of push and pull as to what was appropriate. Reform, as in you try to get in the tent, become part of the government bureaucracy and make change that way. Or do you stay outside the tent and metaphorically throw rocks and create havoc? Tell us a little bit about how that was argued within the Women's Liberation Movement.

Biff Ward: I don't really remember.

Catherine Dwyer: Maybe it's more of a hindsight thing.

Biff Ward: Because I didn't ever have any doubt in myself. I was very clear I couldn't do that other thing.

Elizabeth Reid: Well, let me try and do something here. WEL said they weren't interested in revolution or changes, quite explicitly. What we want to do is achieve certain things. So they would put in a submission on the Family Law Bill on how to end marriage with dignity, put in submission on compensation schemes, put in commission on childcare.

They asked me if they could bring in delegation to meet with the Prime Minister. So I said, "Would you meet with them?" And he agreed. And so they brought in a delegation. I took them in and they met with the Prime Minister. So it was like they wanted to achieve specific things. Well, we wanted to work out to see if we could work out what things would actually lead to an improvement in women's lives and what things wouldn't. I mean, we know that there are lots and lots of initiatives so-called that don't in fact improve women's lives. In fact may have quite the opposite effect. They could be quite harmful towards women. So the problem, and I was a member of both organisations, as I had to be in my job. The problem with WEL is its simplification of the task, of the challenge that you're faced with. And with the simplification of the tasks, there comes a simplification of the analysis. And so WEL would claim on the basis of one meeting with the Prime Minister, which in fact was the disaster. The Prime Minister raged out of that meeting "Don't you ever bring a delegation like that!" I got whipped and WEL went public and said: "We've got childcare!"

When the Prime Minister introduced childcare into the next, it was the only policy change when he went to the election in 1974. He said to his staff, before he just disappeared off the face of the earth, he said, "We have to go back to the people. We've being forced back the people. We are not going to change a single plank in our policy platform." And I thought, "Oh shit."

Anyway, he disappeared. Just he disappeared with his speech writer and secretary and so on. So I said to Caroline [unclear], his secretary, I said, "Oh Caroline, I think given that the boss has disappeared, it's school holidays, so I need to take my daughter for a holiday. I barely see her these days." And she said, "Well why don't you go and ask such and such an MP, from the Gold Coast up in Queensland, he'll tell you a nice place to go." So she organised him to come and see me. And I got my daughter and a friend of hers, and we went up to the Gold Coast. We arrived late at night, excuse me, got up the next morning and I said to Kathryn, "I think we better walk down to the shop and get something that we can eat for breakfast." We're walking down to the beach. There comes the Prime Minister out of the water.

Virginia Haussegger: And she says it was a holiday. Yeah, right, right.

Elizabeth Reid: I said, "I don't believe it. I just don't believe it. He was shocked to see me. He was as shocked to see me as I was to see him. And so we chatted for a little while and I said to him, "Boss, there's just one thing I need to say to you. And that is, there's one policy that you must change this election."

Virginia Haussegger: And he did. He did.

Elizabeth Reid: And he did. $94 million to childcare, which is a community controlled, community based, nonprofit oriented, blah, blah, blah. Everything that we don't have now. And if you think that we have childcare policy now, you're very badly mistaken. We don't, we have policies, a set of programmes that bleed parents dry and open their children up for abuse and all sorts of other things.

Virginia Haussegger: We could talk about this for ages, but I just want to come back to the issue of reform and revolution. And Elizabeth, towards the end of your time working with the Prime Minister, I suspect he's so intense. It was such an intense period of social change. Women's liberation had really gained a lot of momentum. Women had been changed during the early seventies. Women had changed, which was really what you'd set out to do for women to change and to redesign lives in which they could flourish. But I'm wondering, did it ever become for you, you left in October of 1975, you left that role and then left Australia. Did you feel that it had become too hard? Being a liberationist at heart, having revolution in your veins, which you still do, and also working within a bureaucracy that had all sorts of roadblocks along the way? Did it feel like it was just too difficult?

Elizabeth Reid: To be quite honest, I think it should have felt like that because the answer was that it was. But I was still hopeful. We had two things that we need to do to round off International Women's Year, at which stage I would've had to take stock anyway. "Alright, what am I going to do now? I've finished that period." The two things we missed out on, well, after Mexico City, we came back to Australia and the first thing we did, which was radical, absolutely radical, was we held a conference on women's health in a changing society. 950 women, mainly women turned up to it. And we included a special sub conference for Aboriginal women. We bought in. We subsidised hundreds of them to come. And I was just thinking today that it's hard to put ourselves back in what it was like to be a woman in 1975 in terms of one's health. It was a day of Bex and Valium and stuffed into us and so on. Do you know there were no drug trials in the whole world. There wasn't a single drug trial that involved women. All drugs were trialled on men.

Virginia Haussegger: These things - this is why it's so important to talk about this time period, because I mean we, your generation and my generation, have taken it for granted for a long time. That progress is inevitable. It happens eventually, things will improve. What I think we are hearing here, and certainly what I've found in researching my book and interviewing so many women and through Catherine's amazing film, is that revolution is hard work and it never stops. And Biff you said to me at one stage when we were talking in the very early days when I was interviewing you, "Revolution is something that we live. We the revolution. It's not something we aim for." And Elizabeth had said the same things and written the same things over years. I must admit, I found that fascinating. I hadn't thought about it like that. But what is fascinating to me is that you all still live revolution.

Biff Ward: Not sure about that.

Virginia Haussegger: Well, you do. And part of that is the way you have this connection to sisterhood, I think.

Biff Ward: An original badge.

Virginia Haussegger: Oh!

Biff Ward: It's powerful. Sisterhood. Sisterhood is powerful. And that was the other thing I wanted to say, throw in about the reform versus revolution. Women's liberation, the revolutionary side, operated through the use of what we came to call sisterhood. It was about listening. It was about valuing. I mean, of course we messed it up and failed and it wasn't perfect. But the idea was to listen to every woman's story and give it equal value to every other woman's story. And I think some of us, I mean, I feel like if I still live the revolution, it's partly that I was trained through that to be a listener and to enjoy being with other women. And so that becomes part, and I won't go into some of the stories I've heard over the years, but mostly I think, often, the WEL operation of different was far more traditional and formal and

Virginia Haussegger: Hierarchical.

Biff Ward: - had motions and things. And of course, because there were women together, of course, they had the experience of telling those stories and getting close as you've mapped of some of the young women who've been speaking out in recent years having amazing experiences of sisterhood or they don't have that word for it, but it happens.

So the "living the revolution" was also because so many of us came out of the, what I now call the old male left, which I'm sure some of you have experienced, and that was so hierarchical and so invested in splitting hairs and having the right line and so on. And so we from the very beginning said, we're not going to do that. We want a world where people are equal, and so we are going to behave that way. That's going to be built into everything that we do. And I see that coming back in these young women. And I think it was crucial to what fascinated you [Catherine], how they operated and how they treated each other.

Catherine Dwyer: Yeah, people power. It was a leaderless movement, and it was quite amusing when men from the media would try to engage in the movement and they would call up and ask to speak to the president of the women's liberation movement.

Virginia Haussegger: The president. Yes. We haven't actually touched on media. I do want to take some questions from you. Kelly and Sharon are roving with mics. If you have a question, please pop your hand up very quickly. And as you do that, I will just add to that, yes, the issue of media, we could talk about this for days, was huge because misogyny in media and the sexism was so extreme. I thought I'd seen a lot, but boy, oh boy, I was so shocked when I went back and looked at it.

And Biff as you were talking, it reminded me there was a moment in 1975 when women rose up here in Canberra. It was during the Women and Politics conference. It was actually on the 5th of September, 1975. Women got so pissed off with the media treatment of women that a couple of hundred left the conference, which was at ANU at the time, and marched into the offices of the 'Canberra Times' to protest. And that's a great story, and I tell it in the book, but what was fascinating for me to learn about that is that actually is the only time women en masse have made a protest against a news organisation. And when I, because Biff and others went on that night to try and stop the printing press as well, but when I was talking to her about it and you said we were just so sick of the being humiliated and demeaned in this way, it was so dispiriting and it was just a rise up of, "We're going to stop this." Poor old Canberra Times. There was one editor on his own when these women marched in.

Biff Ward: There were about 300 of us.

Elizabeth Reid: And of all backgrounds, trade unionists, conservative, Libs, National Party, local government, everybody. Just en masse.

Virginia Haussegger: En masse. And I've just got to add, because it's so lovely, Elizabeth was being interviewed on A Current Affair a couple of nights later, about the Women and Politics Conference, but she was asked by a haughty interviewer if that form of protest against news organisations was appropriate. And she said, "Yes, yes, it is appropriate." She added, "It doesn't change things now, but it does change women." That was so spot on. Sorry, your question.

Audience member 1: I was just wondering, did you edit the movie during I guess the COVID period and because did they give you sort of extra time for introspection and to perhaps really get down into what it is because it was such a weird time and so many normal things were suspended. Do you think that perhaps gave you a different, I dunno?

Catherine Dwyer: Well, we actually started editing it in 2019, so before COVID. But I do remember the day we all had to go home and work from home, cos we were still editing it. But what I remember strongly is that the Black Summer bushfires were occurring while I was editing it. And I was really in hell, feeling like I was in over my head with this story. And did it even matter? Because look at the state of climate change. That's what I remember. But yes, going into lockdown, I didn't get extra time for introspection. It was definitely, we'd taken longer than we were allocated to edit the film. And it was really hard because we're using the words of the women themselves. So I can't tell them what to say, but I have to edit it in a way that's cohesive. So ABC made me do a one hour cutdown, which is the version that you're going to see. And they wanted a host. So Sigrid Thornton, Merle Thornton's daughter is the narrator and actually learned some convenient lessons about why a narrator is helpful.

Virginia Haussegger: Questions. Any other questions? Pop your hand up, please pop your hand up. I think we had some, this one over there. While you're thinking about popping your hand up, don't be shy. Catherine, what sort of response did you get to this film when it first came out? And as I said before, because no one had done this before, no one had pulled this story together before in such a grand way. How did people respond?

Catherine Dwyer: Yeah, I think people responded really well, and I was really pleased because until we finished it, I didn't know if it worked or not. And I'm not entirely happy with it. There are things that I intended to do with it that I didn't achieve. But no, the response was wonderful, but it was during lockdown that it came out. So all the press I did was via Zoom. So yeah, it was definitely, I thought I could finally get to go back out into the world after being locked away for so long, but I had to stay locked away for a while longer.

Virginia Haussegger: When you say things that you didn't achieve, I mean, what creative ever finishes a project or a book and says, "I've done everything I wanted to do"? I mean, I think everyone feels like that there's always more that they could do or more that they should have done.

Catherine Dwyer: Sorry, I just want to say, but what was wonderful, even though it was in COVID and yeah we all went through it, so we all know what that was like. The one hour cutdown that I did for the ABC came out in March 2021, International Women's Day. And the timing was perfect because it was just before the March4Justice. It was just perfectly timed, I think. And we didn't expect that. We didn't know that the timing would be so perfect. But I remember Joe O'Brien, the news reader, had tweeted that he'd just called his 90-year-old mother in Queensland, and she said, "Can't talk right now, watching 'Brazen Hussies' and reliving it all." And I love that tweet.

Virginia Haussegger: Yeah, that's fantastic. That's fantastic. The timing was extraordinary. It was meant to be because it really did help, as I said, and I argue my book, there was a national consciousness raising going on, and it helped background that I think and gave people a broader understanding of liberation and revolution.

Catherine Dwyer: That reminds me, Claire Wright, the wonderful historian. I'm probably misquoting her, but something like this, she said that, "Women need to know that we're not just making history, but we have made it, have it in the past. And it gets forgotten. And if we don't keep telling these stories and remembering that we made history, then how do you know what you're capable of?"

Virginia Haussegger: Precisely, precisely. It's a theme of my book too. Did you approach Germaine Greer?

Catherine Dwyer: I didn't, no.

Virginia Haussegger: Can you tell us a little bit about that? Because I'm sure that would've been a discussion at some stage.

Catherine Dwyer: I mean, yeah, no, I didn't try. Though, if I had a connection, I'm sure it would've been interesting to meet her. But I didn't think that she, I mean, obviously her book brought a lot of women to the movement and was internationally huge. And the Town Bloody Hall film with Norman Mailer is incredible and she's wonderful in that, but she wasn't part of the grassroots movement in Australia. So that's why, and I didn't think that she needed, her story was well known, but that I remember that there was a version of the edit that just didn't have her at all. And our executive producer, Sue Maslin said, you can't tell this story without having Germaine Greer in it.

Biff Ward: Sue was wrong.

Virginia Haussegger: Biff said, "She was wrong." We have another question up the back. Please go ahead.

Audience member 2: Hi, thank you so much for being here tonight. I really appreciate your time and coming out here and sharing this with us. And especially the idea of liberation as opposed to equality has really resonated with me. But I just was wondering what your thoughts are on, I still come across women who don't believe that we need to make progress or avoid wanting to have a voice and acknowledging that there still is progress that needs to be made. And I am sure it would've been even worse back then. So I would like to know your thoughts on the conversations and how you approach those conversations with other women who didn't have the same ideas as you.

Virginia Haussegger: Thank you. Great question. Biff, would you like to? And Elizabeth also.

Biff Ward: I sort of only in recent years really realised that my thing all through these 50 years, 55 years, has been recruiting. I want every woman to be there. And I also now am wise enough to know they won't ever all be there.You know trad wives and people like this. But I think every woman potentially can be there one day. It's got to be the right issue, place, time for her and safety. Because I was so interested in this issue long ago, I decided this is just my stuff, that rape and war were the two things that probably all women agreed on.

And they've been my issues, the things that I've followed through. And I think while war's getting more complicated, terrible complex all the time, I think the sexual predation stuff is basic, crucial, because it's in every woman's body. We live with that fear. It's part of being female. And I believe that at some point in time, every woman has to acknowledge that. So I think that's a place to work for me. And I think all feminists find their own place. It was another one of the things about women's liberation, what you were good at, go and do it. Do that. Rather than we all have to do the same thing. But that's my offering is around the sex stuff, the predation.

Virginia Haussegger: Elizabeth, did you want to add to that?

Biff Ward:
No, I think that's it.

Virginia Haussegger: It does raise the question, which I think we should perhaps finish on, is "Where all of you feel we are now for women and feminism?" And look, Catherine, I'll start with you and we'll finish on this one. But given, and again, from a millennial generation, where do you, post your film, the reaction you've had to it? Where do you feel feminism is today in Australia?

Catherine Dwyer: That's a tough question, and I think it's hard for me to actually gauge that because I went down the rabbit hole and researched this history so thoroughly. You sort of can't remember what it's like to not know this stuff. But it's complex. And I think I had this very optimistic idea about progress that I don't have so much anymore, but I do working on the film in America about the American movement as well, the fight to protect Roe v. Wade has always been there and has always been on a knife's edge because of the state's control over abortion. But I never would've expected that things would've gone backwards so fast from that film, which came out in 2014 and took 20 years to make. So it's terrifying, the backlash. And I do tend to think of it as a pendulum swing. So if you get progress, if you get reform, and what an incredible time the seventies were with Whitlam for Australian women and the women's movement, because America didn't have that. They had Nixon who vetoed their childcare bill. What an incredible time. But things can go backwards quickly, but the pendulum, and it's not surprising that there's a backlash when things move forward and progress. So it's a dance and you gotta keep fighting.

Sorry, there's been so much progress, but there's still so much more to do. And it's that, I think it's about seeing more women in leadership positions and being part of community decisions and keeping up the good fight. I dunno, I could just go on.

Virginia Haussegger: Keeping up the good fight. As I say, revolution is unfinished. Biff?

Biff Ward: I think, I know this sounds pollyannaish and I often say that no one ever says, "Oh yes, you are." So maybe it's alright. That the vicious, the horror of the backlash, the really alt-right, incel, "feminists are the worst people on earth" backlash. I can only actually think, apart from the base level of misogyny it comes from, that it's a measure of our success, in fact. You know, like, "We are so angry with you." What have we done to you, you know? So there's something in that. And I also have absolute deep, deep, deep trust in the younger women. Women of all generations are younger than me doing it their way and keeping going. It's never going to be a cakewalk. And those young women we've seen in recent years around the western world speaking up and that older woman in France, it's like...

Virginia Haussegger: There is a lot to be optimistic about, I believe.

Biff Ward: Hugely, hugely.

Virginia Haussegger: Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Reid: I think that I agree with Biff. I think there is a lot to be optimistic about present. I think that the point of having a knowledge of one's history is that one can see what was thought to be essential by women in the past. So probably we would think that individual women will have limited impact. If you want to have more pressing impact, you've got to find ways of coming together. Now coming together, WEL taught us, you can have small groups, four or five women everywhere across Australia and it can be small town, large town, medium town, rural areas, camp site, etc. So those groups can, well, they'll work out their own practises and things, but it's simple sharing of stories. They can themselves work out what are the greater influences in the world of women.

And I don't want to exclude men. We used to say that if you can improve women's lives, the flow on benefits hit all society because it improves the lives of their children, their husbands, their families, and so on. So part of the story used to be, and I think still could be today, that to improve women's lives means that some of the harder edges might be softened. The edges of the world we live in.

Biff Ward: Can I just point out that Catherine's film, the wonderful 'Brazen Hussies,' ends with Martha, the marvellous Martha from Sydney saying, "Get into groups, form groups." And that's the sisterhood stuff.

Virginia Haussegger: Yes. And I think young women, certainly my experience of researching this and interviewing a number of young women is that they're really understanding and seeing that, the value in that of working together now in a collective way that we hadn't been doing over the last couple of decades. Unfortunately, we are going to have to leave it there because we do need to take a break and I'll call on Allison again.

Alison Dellit: Well, I think if we needed evidence of the sustaining power of sisterhood, we've had it in bucket loads tonight. Can everybody thank our panel please?